Monday, July 06, 2009


 

Spinning the news from Honduras


Very reliable reports have the Honduran military murdering two people at Tegucigalpa Airport yesterday. An Al Aljazeera reporter on air personally witnessed the dead people, even filming one young child shot in the head whose brains were spilling out on the ground. But when you turn to AP today, the main source of news for this event for most U.S. news consumers, what do you find? Only one death is reported, and it in the 13th paragraph of the story. But how the death is reported was even more interesting than the fact that only one was reported [emphasis added]:
Clashes broke out Sunday afternoon between police and soldiers and the huge crowd of Zelaya supporters surrounding Tegucigalpa's international airport. At least one man was killed — shot in the head from inside the airport as people tried to break through a security fence, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.
"Clashes broke out." Yes, soldiers firing live ammunition and a handful of protesters among tens of thousands throwing stones. "Clashes." Then the murder itself. "A shot...from inside the airport." AP fails to point out to its readers that the only ones "inside the airport" were the military.

But worst of all was what comes next in the article:

Critics feared Zelaya might try to extend his rule and cement presidential power in ways similar to what his ally Chavez has done in Venezuela.
Excuse me? How exactly did Chavez "cement presidential power" in Venezuela? By holding vote after vote of the entire population of the country. The idea!

Update: CNN's crawl today: Honduran army fires shots, tear gas, activists say. "Activists say"? I watched the live footage on Al Jazeera and TeleSur, and heard live reports from their reporters on the scene! "Activists say" indeed.


// posted @ 7/06/2009 09:07:00 AM // 

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